


With Shaking Hands, We Build

by freoduweard



Series: Breath, Blood, and Soul [1]
Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, Words of Radiance spoilers, all three want each other and none of them know how to say it, boys covering their concern with snapping and sniping, oh look they're having a conversation about their feelings, post-WoR, pre-Oathbringer, the pieces of the triad falling into place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-05 18:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5386304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freoduweard/pseuds/freoduweard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Radiants have made their home base at Urithiru. One by one, they begin opening the Oathgates, using Alethi armies to defend against the changing Parshmen and the reappearance of old monsters thought only nightmares. In the middle of it all, three people try to find out what they mean to one another.</p><p>Chapter Two: Single-Crystal Diffraction<br/>---------------</p><p>“I kissed Kaladin.”</p><p>Shallan started in surprise, almost smearing her charcoal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cloudburst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Words of Radiance but before people find out who killed Sadeas (pre-Oathbringer).
> 
> \---------------------------
> 
> Cloudburst: an extreme amount of precipitation, sometimes accompanied by hail and thunder, that normally lasts no longer than a few minutes but is capable of creating flood conditions.

 

“What,” Kaladin snapped, the last of his excess stormlight streaming through his teeth, “was _that?_ ”

Adolin raised an eyebrow at the intrusion into his war-tent and waved off his armorers. The men bowed hastily and scuttled away, obviously not wanting to get between whatever was about to happen between the Radiant captain and the Kholin prince. Adolin, without his helm but otherwise still fully clad in his Plate, crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

“All of it! The plan that left you and your squad cut off if the battalion couldn’t break through, that last charge against the storm-forms and that thunderclast - ” Kaladin bit off a curse. His own timely intervention had saved the small knot of furiously fighting men, and with Lashings and an extra Shardblade, they had finally managed to take the monster down. It had been too close for comfort; Adolin’s cracked Shardplate was an unneeded reminder of that. “Where’s the damn prince that _leads_ an army?”

“I’m still _at_ the front of the army, if you hadn’t noticed. Storms, you act as if I wasn’t taking risks on the battlefield before this. Ask my father, or anyone in the army. Ask your own men - Skar and Drehy - they were with me during that last battle on the Plains when we had to cut around and _through_ that plateau, not to mention them pulling me back from the edge of a chasm.” Annoyance bled through the amusement in Adolin’s voice, his lip curling. He tended to take criticism well, for a lighteyes, but that damnable _pride_...

“I’ve _seen_ you fight before; you expect me to be worried over that? No, there’s a difference between your usual confidence and this… this _recklessness_. You’re taking more risks lately, and _not_ smart ones.” Kaladin didn’t have the uncanny insight for widespread strategy that the Kholins did - his skill was in small-unit tactics - but this recurring pattern was hardly a subtle one. He couldn’t _not_ notice that Adolin’s tactics had changed, and not for the better. He forced his hands to relax from their balled-up fists. “Keep putting yourself out there and vulnerable like you have been, and it’ll be your _corpse_ I have to retrieve.”

“You’d have me - _a Shardbearer_ \- stay back on the sidelines of a battle, when I have _always_ headed the charge? Do you even hear yourself speaking?” Adolin uncrossed his arms and stepped up right into Kaladin's personal space, his armor negating their usual height difference. True anger flared behind those bright eyes, a muscle in his jaw twitching visibly as he growled through clenched teeth. “And don’t talk to _me_ about recklessness, not when you’re flying in there with no shield or Shardplate. I’ve always led from the front, _Captain_ , and Plate can handle those lightning strikes that fry men where they stand. What happens when their aim starts getting better, and they decide to look _up?_ ”

Kaladin ignored the jab at his own relative fragility, addressing the accusation instead. “Absolutely not. But each time now, you’ve pushed further and further in, leaving your men behind and opening yourself to getting surrounded - the single best way to overwhelm a man in Plate!” That was something Kaladin knew all too well. He could remember with visceral clarity the furious, desperate scrabble of spearmen against Shardbearer, watching his men fall around him with burned-out eyes. For a split second, the memory of that battle shifted in his mind, the armor Kholin blue instead of brilliant gold as his spearpoint jammed through the helm’s eyeslit, and a cold horror clenched in his gut. He shoved it down with some difficulty, meeting Adolin’s glare with his own. “And you know it is.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s like you _want_ to get taken down. You might be an arrogant, storming headache, princeling, but you’re hardly an _idiot_.” Kaladin exhaled in a huff, wrestling down the worry and the frustration and that persistent, tangled emotion that he refused to name, much less acknowledge. When he spoke again, it was softer than he’d intended. “This isn’t like you at all.

“What’s _wrong_?”

Adolin relaxed slightly as Kaladin did, the combative tension lessening, and backed up a step so that he wasn’t so threateningly close. The scowl dissolved into his usual infuriating smirk, but this time it was brittle, sharp-edged, and it didn’t reach his eyes. There was something guarded in that expression, almost wary, though he hid it well. “Come on now, bridgeboy. It almost sounds like you _care_.”

 _Oh, that is_ _**it**_ _._

“You really are an idiot,” Kaladin snarled, “if you think that I _don’t_.”

Adolin stared at him. A moment of stunned silence settled over the war-tent, only broken by their breathing and the muffled, ambient noise of the camp outside. Even that seemed dim and quiet. Kaladin raised his chin in silent defiance, gaze never wavering, _daring_ the damned, stubborn brightlord to refute him.

He knew what determination looked like in Adolin’s eyes and saw it kindle within that cobalt like a Radiant’s stormlight.

Using a speed and grace afforded only by stormlight or Shardplate, Adolin grabbed the front of Kaladin’s uniform with a hand that could crush steel. The prince hauled him forward, and suddenly there was a mouth against Kaladin's. The lips were chapped from stormwinds and hard breathing, but also… they were softer than he’d expected.

Caught off guard, Kaladin froze, inhaling sharply in surprise. The gemstones in the tent dimmed noticeably in response. Adolin immediately stilled, and the pressure on Kaladin’s mouth lightened. Kaladin didn’t hear him curse, unvoiced as it was, but he felt words form against his lips as Adolin reluctantly pulled away, the grip on Kaladin’s uniform going slack. _No!_ His hands snatched up, flicker-quick, and tangled in the short black-and-gold mess of Adolin’s hair. He dragged the princeling back in and caught the surprised gasp with a kiss of his own.

Kaladin’s eyes slid shut as Adolin responded with fervor. A wet line traced over the seam of his lips, demanding entry, and Kaladin parted them without hesitation. Stormlight-tinged breath passed between the two of them as teeth clicked, tongues twining. Kaladin raked his nails though Adolin’s hair, triumph rising at the groan that rumbled against his mouth. One of Adolin’s gauntlets curled around the back of Kaladin’s neck, the other at his waist, pulling him closer.

Kaladin had never realized that Shardplate could be gentle.

He knew it in the abstract, of course, and had even watched Renarin as the younger Kholin was learning to handle the strength of it with delicacy. Kaladin’s own experience with Plate, though, had been pain, and the memory of Moash’s single devastating punch was still fresh in his nerves. This, though… he felt a firm push at the small of his back, the weight of Adolin’s gauntlet settling there to hold them together. Kaladin was acutely aware that with Shardplate-enhanced strength, Adolin could snap his spine with barely more than a thought. And yet, the touch of that armor was almost… tender.

They came up for air, though with light in his lungs Kaladin didn’t need it, and they did not part further. Kaladin’s front still moulded against the armor, and Adolin pressed a close-mouthed kiss to the corner of his lips, breath skating along his skin as their cheekbones brushed. The fingertips at the nape of his neck stroked softly, and Kaladin idly wondered just how much sensation traveled through Plate. He inhaled. There was no scent of cologne around the princeling this time, just sweat and leather and the faint ozone tang of Shardplate.

“You could have died out there.” Sometimes he forgot that Adolin wasn’t a Radiant. Sometimes they _all_ did. It just made incidents like the one today all the more vivid.

Adolin snorted. “You write me off so easily. We would have lost more today if it wasn’t for you, but it wasn’t as hopeless a situation as you seem to think.”

Kaladin turned his head and nipped Adolin’s lower lip sharply. “Fine. I’ll believe you. But _don’t do it again_.”

“Watch it with the orders, bridgeboy.” The tone might almost have been amused, if not for the steely thread of command that laced through it. Adolin sighed, and his voice gentled. “I can’t promise anything. But I’ll try.”

Kaladin nodded, accepting the answer without further comment. It was probably the best he was going to get from someone who led a princedom’s armies into war, and therefore all he could ask. There was, however, a complication unrelated to the battle that needed to be addressed. “Don’t you think your betrothed will be angry that you’ve kissed someone else?”

Kaladin could feel the wince against his cheek. Adolin released him, hands returning to his sides, stepping back with guilt and worry writ plain on his face. He tried to cover it up with a smile, but the effort failed miserably. “Are you kidding, bridgeboy? Jealous, maybe, and not of you. She…” The smile cracked, and Adolin gave up on the fragile pretense. He ran a hand through his already-tousled hair, glancing to the side. “No. No, I doubt she’ll take it well. Blood of my ancestors. Stormfather knows what Shallan means to me, and already I can’t imagine what it would be like without her. But Kaladin, I... I can’t deny what you mean to me either.”

“You’re not the only one.” Adolin’s head jerked back up, their eyes meeting. Kaladin released a shaky breath. A year ago, or even just a few months ago, it wasn’t an admission he thought he’d ever hear, much less _return_. He reached up, running the back of his knuckles over the deep blue Shardplate. _A lighteyes. And this one, of all people._ “Heralds help me.”

A bit of amusement worked its way into the quirk of Adolin’s lips, but it only lasted for a moment before turning wry. “I’m not sure what I’ll tell Shallan yet - only that I will. I _have_ to.”

That, Kaladin had never doubted. Adolin wasn’t the kind of man to withhold something like that. Kaladin wouldn’t be surprised if  the first thing Adolin did upon returning to Urithiru was to go seek out Shallan. How would she respond? Despite Adolin’s half-joke about Shallan being jealous of him - _and how much truth was in that quip, I wonder?_ \- Kaladin would have to be a blind man to miss how she looked at the princeling. Adolin brought out something open and honest in her, a comfortable happiness that lit up her face when she was around him. _Storms, now who sounds like the jealous one?_

Kaladin started to turn, to leave Adolin to call his armorers back in and contemplate what he was going to say to his causal-betrothed, but stopped. Something nagged at him. Adolin’s admittance that he was going to tell Shallan reminded Kaladin of his question earlier, the one that was never answered, the one that had accidentally set off the unexpected kiss. _Brittle. Evasive. Taking excessive risks._

“You never told me what’s wrong.”

Adolin stilled.

“I…” It was a single, broken syllable, and Kaladin’s eyes widened at the sound of it. This, from _Adolin Kholin?_ “...I can’t.”

Heavy gauntlets clenched. Kaladin swore he could almost see them _trembling_. Adolin had to visibly collect himself before he could speak again. “I gave you my word that I’d be more careful. Let that be enough for now. I can’t…” Adolin spread his hands before himself, palms up, and stared down at them with distant eyes. “It’s not something that I can keep forever. But I have to figure it out on my own.” He looked up, gaze refocusing and finding Kaladin’s.

“Please.”

Kaladin held eye contact and nodded once before turning on his heel and leaving the tent. Syl whisked by, tumbling over his head in a glowing cloud of leaves as she rode a wayward breeze. He could feel her curiosity brush through him like an unspoken question. _Later, Syl. I might actually have an answer for you then._ Right now his mind was too chaotic, his thoughts a storm-blown wreck, though one always rose above the rest.

_...it’s worse than I thought. What on earth could make you act like this? And how have you been hiding it?_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two: Single-Crystal Diffraction
> 
> \------------
> 
> “I kissed Kaladin.”
> 
> Shallan started in surprise, almost smearing her charcoal.


	2. Single-Crystal Diffraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Single-crystal X-ray diffraction: a non-destructive analytical technique which provides detailed information about the internal lattice of crystalline substances
> 
> \----------------
> 
> As a side note, until proven otherwise (next book, yes?) I headcanon Shshshsh as Iriali, with her sons showing muted but still present metallics.

 

“I kissed Kaladin.”

Shallan started in surprise, almost smearing her charcoal. Creationspren faded around her. Absorbed in her drawing, she hadn’t heard Adolin come in. Alone. It was a huge breach of propriety not having anyone - even one of the guards - in the room as a chaperone, but with a pronouncement like _that_...

Adolin dipped his chin, eyes flickering away briefly, and Shallan realized that she had been staring in shocked silence. She almost smudged her sketches of Veil once again as she hurried to move her drawing board from her lap. “I… I’m sorry?” She rose - not that it did much to offset their height difference - and clasped her hands in front of her, safehand sleeve over freehand to hide the nervous flutter of her fingers.

“I kissed Kaladin,” Adolin repeated. “Fully and intentionally. I… didn’t want you to hear about it though rumor.” His weight shifted almost imperceptibly onto the balls of his feet. The honesty and guilt was unmistakable in both his voice and his bearing. Adolin always wanted to pace when he was tense; Shallan could see that leashed energy in him now. Instead, he stood straight-backed, hands behind him. Did he realize how easily he fell into attention, how much he looked like his father when he did so?

“And you didn't invite me?” The quip was out before Shallan realized what she was saying, and her hand flew to her lips in consternation as Adolin’s shoulders went stone-stiff. Heat rising in her face, Shallan cursed her tendency to let her mouth get ahead of her thought process. Pattern buzzed quietly from her skirt and Shallan shushed him. This was _not_ the time for the spren to chime in, and she had the feeling that a poorly-timed _‘Truuuth?’_ would cause Adolin to either flinch or flee. But still, what did one say to something like this? It wasn’t like _she_ hadn’t imagined what it would be like to kiss Kaladin, to bury her hands in his dark curls and find out if he kissed with all the intensity that he put into everything else. But for Adolin to actually go and _do_ it…

“Thank you. For telling me, I mean.” Shallan fidgeted, plucking lightly at her skirt with her freehand. This was it, then, wasn't it? From the very first, Jasnah had said that part of the reason she was considered eligible for a betrothal was because Adolin had courted and been rejected by every single ranking lighteyed woman in the warcamp. Now it was her turn. The causal-betrothal was still all that formally bound them, and she would be well within her rights to call it off if she wished. Indeed, as a Radiant, she no longer needed the marriage into the Kholin house as badly as she once did, if she even _needed_ it at all anymore.

And yet, Shallan didn't want to let him go.

She took a slow, deliberate breath to steady herself, and then stepped closer, tilting her head back to look him in the eye. “Does this mean you want to break off the betrothal?”

“Storms, no! I don’t - no.” The words slipped out a little too quickly, a hint of panic showing on Adolin’s face and in his voice. His hands twitched forward - to touch, to gesture, she couldn’t tell which - but aborted halfway as he apparently thought better of the motion, returning to curl at his sides. Shallan bit the inside of her lip. She didn’t need Pattern’s silent whisper in her mind to judge the sincerity of that reaction. Adolin winced, his boots scuffing loudly in the quiet room as he shifted his feet. “I can’t call it a mistake. I wanted it - I _meant_ to kiss him, even if it was on the spur of the moment, but I _shouldn’t_ have done it. It was unfair to you, and disloyal besides.” His gaze flicked away for a moment - in shame? regret? - before rising back to hers.

“I don’t want to lose you.” It was spoken lowly enough that Shallan almost didn’t catch it, then Adolin drew in a steeling breath and continued on. “But I won’t deny what I’ve done. You’re the wronged party here; it’s your call if you want to dissolve the causal. I…” A pause, the soft scrape of a boot once more. “I couldn’t blame you. When women have broken it off with me before, it's usually for something far less than… than this.”

That was true; she knew those reasons ranged everywhere from ‘date turned sour’ to ‘smiled too brightly at another lady’ to ‘grew bored’, though Shallan secretly suspected that not many of his previous suitors had tried to find _Adolin_ behind the casual mask of met expectations. ‘Kissing someone else’ - a man, no less - hadn't been anywhere close to making the list. _Could it be that…_

“Do you… prefer men? In your bed?” Shallan fought down another blush at the images that rose in her mind, even as the thought that he might not desire her dismayed her - more than she’d realized it would. It was hardly unusual for a brightlord or brightlady to have a lover for pleasure when in an arranged marriage, especially when one's inclination was not towards their partner’s sex. Vorin teachings did not approve, of course, but it happened anyway. Had Adolin’s previous relationships ended badly in part because he simply wasn’t _interested_ in the ladies he courted?

_I didn’t know Alethi could blush like that._

“N-no. Yes? I…” Adolin ran a hand through his hair, breaking eye contact. The flush still darkened the skin across his cheekbones. “Men don’t catch my eye as often as women do - used to, before you and him - but it’s not like it doesn’t happen.”

Shallan could understand that. She remembered how she felt around Jasnah, once the awe had worn off a little. Strong, beautiful, _brilliant_ Jasnah, who exuded regality like a queen. The warmth that flared low in her belly when watching and listening to the woman was no less sure than the attraction she felt for the handsome man in front of her.

It wasn’t just the heat of desire, though. With Adolin, it was their talks of chasmfiends and art, of the genuine interest in her projects and a mind intuitive enough to keep up. It was his blunt honesty and unwavering resolve, and a grin just for her that made her insides twist like Pattern’s fractals.

_Kaladin, with his quick wit and surprisingly lovely smile. A surgeon’s gentleness covered in spear-calluses, hiding a heart steadfast as stone. A listening ear in the storm as she poured out the tale of her shame._

Shallan had an Idea. That could be a dangerous thing, considering the situations most of her Ideas got her into.

_But what if it works?_

Shallan took one of Adolin’s hands in both of hers, stroking the back of it with her thumbs. _Such large hands._ This close, she could see how his mother’s blood turned Alethi tan into true bronze, the telltale metallic gleam almost unnoticable from any further away. Shallan’s heart raced at the intimacy of it. Their frantic, fervent kiss after finding Urithiru was nothing in comparison. Even with a chaperone watching, Shallan had never _dared_ something like this, with only the meager fabric of her sleeve separating her safehand from his skin. Her mouth had gone dry, and she wet her lips nervously before looking up from his hands to his face.

“You don't feel for me any less because you feel the same for him, do you?”

Adolin breathed, and there was an audible tremble in the exhale. “I can't put one of you over the other. I tried, I…” His fingers curled, and she could feel tiny bones and tendons shifting under her thumbs. “It’s selfish of me, to feel the same way when I held him against me as I do with you now.” Adolin’s fingertips gently brushed the inside of her wrists, and Shallan very nearly stopped breathing.

 _You’re a hopeless romantic at heart,_ she thought, and wasn’t sure if she meant it about Adolin or herself. Both, perhaps. Pattern hummed softly, the vibrations whispering along the folds of her skirt breaking her momentary reverie, and Shallan collected herself before her brain could completely turn to mush. With what she was going to suggest, she’d need to tread carefully. _And by all the Heralds, think before you speak this time!_

Her voice steadier than it had any right to be, Shallan took a leap of faith.

“What if I said that I wanted him too?”

Those broad, blue-clad shoulders gave a sheepish half-shrug, bowing slightly inward with the barest hint of a resigned slump. “I can hardly blame you, can I? It’d be hypocritical of me if I did. And it’s not like I haven’t seen the way you look at him, but you’re not the one who-”

Shallan shook her head. “Not _instead_ of you. Him too. _Both_ of you.”

Adolin startled, staring down at her as if in incomprehension, his jaw slack in surprise. Shallan reached up, up, stretching from tiptoes to fingertips to brush a lock of solid black away from his forehead. “You couldn’t choose. Maybe... maybe you don’t have to. Maybe _none_ of us do.” Shallan's bare hand continued on, stroking the back of her fingers down his cheek in an undisguised caress. Adolin turned into it, his eyes flickering shut, lips dusting over her knuckles with all the reverence of a prayer.

Shallan suppressed a tiny, shuddering gasp at that touch as a thrill shivered down her spine. Pressing in against him, she wound her hands in the thick fabric of his uniform coat. Adolin wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, and Shallan could hear the faint beat of his heart, feel the words as he spoke. “If you’re suggesting what I think you are, you know that no one would approve, if they even deigned to acknowledge it. You really want to try this?”

Shallan leaned her forehead against his chest and nodded.

“We’ll have to talk to Kaladin, and soon, but there’s every chance that he won’t want anything to do with this. A relationship between three people?” Adolin’s short huff of a laugh was wry. “You have to admit, the idea is more than a little bit crazy.”

“Even if he doesn’t, I still want this.” Shallan looked up, her grip on his coat tightening. The angle from this close was awkward, bound to give her a crick in her neck if she held it too long, but that was inconsequential at the moment. “I don’t want to give up our betrothal. I’m not going to give up _you_.”

Adolin stepped back, releasing the embrace, and for a moment Shallan was blindingly, absolutely terrified that she’d said too much, or said the wrong thing, and the warmth was gone the safety was gone he was going to leave he was-

Adolin leaned down and cupped her face in both hands, his thumbs resting lightly on her cheekbones. Shallan’s breath caught at the gentle touch as he rested his forehead against hers. Adolin’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I don’t deserve you.”

_Oh._

Shallan closed her eyes, thinking of lies, burned-out eyes, and silver strangling necklaces. Of white-on-blue, brilliant smiles, and a warm bronze hand in hers.

“Not true.” And she leaned up to kiss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Three: [working title]
> 
> \------------
> 
> "I refuse to be your darkeyed bed-warmer.” Kaladin's voice was quiet but strong, and deadly serious.


End file.
